Berklee Performance Center
136 Massachusetts Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02115
136 Massachusetts Avenue,
Boston,
MA
02115
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The Fenway in the early 50’s was mostly a moveover from the Paramount. Same could be said of the Downtyown Loews Orpheum and Lowes State. Sometimes they played day and date.
The Globe has more detail on this: Berklee breaks ground on 16-story dorm, performance center
Only a single one-story building was demolished to make way for this project. The new building will contain a “400-seat student performance venue”. That’s a lot smaller than the existing Performance Center and I think it serves a different purpose.
The business section of today’s Boston Herald has a short item reporting that today there will be a ground-breaking ceremony hosted by Berklee at 160 Massachusetts Avenue, just a few steps from the Berklee Performance Center. The new building will be a 16-floor dorm with a “performing arts facility”, and will cost $65M. Will the auditorium in this new building replace the Berklee theater???
The Fenway in 1948 can be seen here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cityofbostonarchives/4404135227/sizes/l/in/photostream/
The Jan.15, 1916 issue of Moving Picture World trade magazine had a short item about the recent opening of the Fenway Th. There was also a facade photo. The building was owned by Colonial Realty and managed by Stanley Summer. The movie screen had “gold fibre” cloth. The organist also served at the Trinity Church. There was also an orchestra and “high class” vocal artistes who performed between films. There were young women ushers. Over 15,000 attended the open house on opening day.
The Boston Herald reported today that the Boston Redevelopment Authority yesterday approved the Berklee College Master Plan for their section of Mass. Avenue. I don’t know what’s in the plan today, but 4 years ago it called for the demolition of this theater, and the construction of a new building containing a new theater.
The Fenway apparently did not actually open until December 19, 1915, so the October estimate in the article above proved unrealistic. And it had 1,373 seats originally.
The following comes from The Moving Picture World July 1915:
“The work on construction of the new Fenway Theater at the corner of Boyleston Street and Massachusetts Avenue is progressing rapidly. If the present plans work out successfully, the house will be opened to the public on October 15.
This house is being erected by the Colonial Realty Company at a cost of $400,000. In addition to the theater there will be bowling alleys, two stores and two floors of offices. The theater will be run by the Fenway Amusement Company, of which A. Abrams is the president and M. F. Eisenberg is the secretary. Mr. Eisenberg will personally manage the playhouse.
The lobby of the theater will be of marble and mosaic. Every modern equipment will be used. The installation of a $15,000 organ is planned. The company operating the theater intends to operate a chain of picture houaes throughout New England. They have already secured control of the Webster theater at Webster, Mass.
When the house is completed, it will have a seating capacity of 1,700 persons, with one balcony. High class features and select songs are to be used. The house is fully equipped and should the management desire to use vaudeville, it can easily be done".
Photos can be seen here.
The Fenway was an ornate, beautiful theatre, though certainly not as impressive as the RKO Keith Memorial, the Metropolitan, the Lowe’s State, and the Lowe’s Orpheum. There was also a small bowling alley underneath the theatre and accessed through a door to the left of the main entrance.
The MGM Theatre Photograph and Report form for the Fenway Theatre has an exterior photo dated April 1941. There was a long elaborate rectangular marquee with the name in big letters in the center. Attractions are Humphrey Bogart in “The Wagons Roll at Night” plus “Las Vegas Nights”. There must have been a pool hall upstairs because the word “Billiards” is posted in 2 windows over the marquee. The Report states that the Fenway is at 136 Mass. Ave., that it is not a MGM customer; that it’s in Good condition; and has the following seating: Orchestra- 822, Balcony- 490, Loges- 61; total: 1,373 seats.
I wrote to with this question:
“From recent newspaper reports, it sounds like Berklee is about to demolish and replace the Performance Center. Is this true? If so, what will be its last day of operation?”
Within minutes, I got this reply:
“The project is in the initial discussion phase. I believe it will be at least several years before actual demolition occurs. Thanks for your interest in our theater.”
Most likely the new performance center will accomodate World Music and others. That’s surely part of the business plan. Ironically, if the Gaiety had remained to be used as a performance space, the concert series could have continued there during construction.
The Performance Center is heavily booked by concert promoters such as World Music. If Berklee is allowed to demolish it, I hope the same promoters will be able to use its new theatre.
If the city allowed the Gaiety Theater to be demolished in the theater district, it seems highly unlikey that this isolated theater will be saved, particularly since the interior has been drastically altered. Boston could have been developed as a midrise city with careful preservation of a wide range of buildings that could have been woven into a fabric including new construction puncutated by the occasional high rise. Instead, we seem to be getting more and more towers.
A report on local TV news tonight stated flatly that the “30-year-old” theatre would be torn down and replaced with an up-to-date new concert hall. A photo was shown of the Berklee’s auditorium ( The theatre may have been used by the music school for 30 years but it is, of course, much older.)
Berklee has announced plans for new buildings, which unfortunately appear to include tearing down this theatre and replacing it with a new one:
Berklee seeks to build dorm tower and theater
Yes, the second photo posted above by Lost Memory shows the rear stage wall and the left exterior auditorium wall. You can clearly see the scar on the rear wall caused by bricking-up the old scene loading door at the time that Berklee College took over the Fenway Theatre. In the front view, in the far right distance, is Symphony Hall.
Modern front view and I assume this would be the rear of the theater.
On this 1928 map, you can barely make out the FENWAY THEATRE near the map’s bottom left corner. It’s on Masschusetts Avenue, one building to the right (south) of Boylston Street.
I don’t know Berklee’s motivation for modernizing it, but it’s possible that the old theatre was not acoustically appropriate for its new function as a concert hall.
Tom N is correct- it is a miracle that the building is still standing. If it were not for the fact that the Berklee School of Music is in the immediate area, the old Fenway Theatre would be “toast”. Because the interior was “modernized”, theatre enthusiast groups skip it. For example, the THSA did not visit it during their 1983 Boston tour and will not visit it during their 2006 tour. The LHAT did not visit it during their 1990 tour, although I believe they at least mentioned it in their guidebook. The CTA tour in April 2004 paused briefly to examine the exterior but did not arrange to go inside. I do not feel that the auditorium is not worth seeing just because it has been altered.
Ron-I’ve only been to the BPC once for a benefit performance given by comedian Robert Klein. I remember the modern interior. I wish they’d done a restoration instead, though I suppose it’s a miracle that the building is still standing.
After sitting dormant for what seemed like eons to me, this place at the intersection of Mass Ave and Boylston st, reopened with Zappa doing his fabulous Mudshark show (available as the Fillmore East recording of it) with Howard Kaylen and Mark Volmann – The Turtles! – as his vocalists. On this auspicious opening night, Mr Zappa ripped into the audience for being so obtuse and, as he aptly put it: “I often wondered where all the assholes went after the Fillmore closed in NYC."
Biting but true.
Don’t recall many other shows there at all at that time.
The Fenway was part of M&P Theatres, and as the “uptown” location, sometimes showed the same film as the Paramount. Much like Loews State & Orpheum. For example, on Sept 23, 1947, “Variety Girl” with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and “40 Stars!” along with the Co-hit! “Jungle Flight” was playing at both the Paramount and the Fenway. The Fenway was designed by Thomas Lamb and had 1373 seats (it has about 1220 seats now). I went into it a few times, a nice house with an oblong shape, and one balcony. It was sort of an art house in the early 1960s – I saw a Japanese film there. Oddly, when Berklee took it over as a live concert hall, they bricked up the original scene door and stage door at the rear of the stagehouse. Today, there is a stage door at stage-right, but no scene loading door. They also “modernized” the interior instead of restoring it.